Google are not pussies. Apple fanboys are pussies!
The comments continue to pour in in response to my Google are pussies post. The post was meant to expose Google's double standards and duplicitousness. It was not written because I am, as I've been accused, a "Apple fanboy-Google hater".
Yes, there are problems with America's patent system. No, Apple is not an angel. The post suggested no such thing. Rather, it focused on how Google uses monopoly profits from search to destroy companies in other markets it decides to enter, often through the very Microsoft-like bundling of multiple Google properties, and, worse, in my view, leverages its own patents and closed solutions (e.g. contextual advertising) while, allegedly, willfully infringing on other's patents.
You do not have to be an Apple fanboy to make this case.
However, a large number of comments quickly devolved into a Google vs Apple fight. One of these, however, despite my issues with some of his conclusions, was quite good. I am reposting it below, unedited -- with just one caveat:
Many commenters defended Google because, say, unlike Apple in their view, Google does not proactively sue others for a host of patent violations; particularly patents that, in most person's minds, should never have been awarded. Perhaps. However, what these commenters often fail to state or possibly fail to understand is, that does not give Google the right to *steal* other's patents.
If you think Apple, say, has been awarded patent(s) that should not have been awarded, fair enough. If you believe Apple leverages patents to stifle innovation or prevent others from from competing, fair enough, make that case. But this does not give Google the legal nor moral right to use other's property without paying for it. As I stated in my original post, Google absolutely protects its search and contextual advertising properties. If you think all software patents are bad then demand Google release its search algorithm, say.
Having said that, one reader's comment:
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From Sandeep Deshpande:
Google is giving away software for free, not hardware. If google gives away hardware for free without any contract and no other obligations, then you can whine about free. Google's model is bad for Microsoft only which depends on licensing software, not sure how it hurts Apple which can easily compete with any android OEMs, after all they sell the complete package, if hardware components are commoditized, they can sell a hundred million more Iphones, not sure how microsoft can compete with commoditized hardware(netbooks were already slowly eroding microsoft's profits).
Yes Apple does not allow amazon to sell books from within their apps, unless they give a 30 percent cut, your point about amazon kindle still being in iOS ecosystem is lame, it is similar to how yelp is still indexed by google search and yelp has not pulled out its content from google search, despite google places being a direct competitor to yelp(both yelp and amazon have no choice but to include their stuff in their competitors ecosystem).
Here is Apple banning android stuff from the appstore
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/...
The reason I included the above points was because Brian S Hall was whining that google search results include links to youtube, google maps, google places etc. What Brian S Hall forgets is that search is a google property, they can do as they wish, users are free to search using any other search engine. Switching costs are Zero, unlike say a corporate PC or a smartphone with a 2 year contract. So if Google is blamed for including links to google properties on its link, why isn't Apple blamed for including only Apple appstore, why not allow Amazon to host its appstore on Iphone.
And I included the pricing strategy for Ipad because Google is apparently using profits from search to fund new businesses and that is evil(by that defintion capitalism is evil, capital obtained legally by other means is invested in new potential profit making ventures which is the basic principle of capitalism), Apple used profits from IPhone to fund their predatory IPad component purchasing binge. And Android is profitable and they are positive in cash flow, that's what i meant by there is more than one way to make money on software(software licensing is just one way and is on the way out)
I am not saying Apple is wrong, it is their platform, but I am just saying the same arguments can be made for Apple as well as any other successful company. Yet Google gets a special treatment, because he is an Apple Fan.
Facebook selling likes to bing is downright lame, because 1.5 billion people use google search and just because you don't get along with google is just a stupid reason to not give the option to facebook users, how about giving users the choice to integrate their 'likes' with either google or bing and let the market decide.
<sarcasm>Yes Google maps and youtube were successful only because google included it in their links and not because of the impressive data centers of google which can handle 48 hours of videos uploaded every minute without breaking and not because google maps is much more superior than any other competing maps service out there</sarcasm>
And Google copying groupon is evil, but Apple copying dropbox in their iCloud stuff is heavenly. Please don't talk about minute differences between dropbox and iCloud, I am sure google offers has a lot of minute differences with groupon. In any case iCloud is free, Apple is using its profits from Iphone to give away a free stuff on which dropbox depends for its revenues. Yes even facetime falls into that category, Apple is using profits from IPhone to give away free stuff like facetime on which other services depend for revenue.
Yes Apple attempt at social networking ping(using profits from IPhone to fund it to boot) is revolutionary indeed. Yes only Google does new ventures from profits of its existing business, other companies do it out of thin air automagically. Maybe we can also get free energy out of this automagic process and do away with dependence on fossil fuels, a new utopia
So your argument is when Apple gives away free stuff it is to enhance the user experience, but when Google gives away free stuff, it is evil and monopolistic, lol.
Here are short bullet points summarized for Apple fans like you
1) funding technologists through advertising is evil and non-innovative to boot and such a company is incapable of producing great technology.
2) no alternatives to google on the web(bing, yahoomail, firefox, safari, microsoft adcenter, facebook ads, bing maps, yelp don't exist in Brian S Hall's mind)
3) google using profits from search to fund new businesses is evil
4) copying if done by Google is evil and non-innovative, if done by Apple it is only to enhance user experience
5) google is the same as microsoft
6) selling hardware and selling software is the only way to do business, other ways are evil and non-innovative.
7) Google is evil
8) Facebook trying to kill google search through the lame duck microsoft is innovative and a value add proposition to the end user.